@drcharisma HA I wonder how they manage to get all the teacher recommendations they need? It seems like a lot of teachers look down on students going after ONLY prestige
@drcharisma, I agree that spreading yourself too thin is a risk that too many kids do not take in to account. For most typical unhooked applicants (high-stats with good but not spectacular ECs) they almost have to make their essays shine and have their passions show through to have any chance.
There is a saying that goes something along the lines of, ‘be careful about taking advice from the successful, for they themselves usually do not understand the cause of their success.’
1 I agree. However, if it wasn't for this site, reading the essays of other people, and research from what college admissions officers have said, I wouldn't know that colleges are looking for people that make a difference in their community or society. That fact is what underlies your better and best points.
2 Depends on the school. Schools like MIT and Caltech specifically are looking for every pointed students. Other institutions such as Stanford are looking for the exact opposite and would prefer well-rounded students. UCs ask for 25 ECs and no questions relating to intellectual passions so it's not that hard to interpret what they are looking for in students.
6 Some people write really good essays and those people get admitted to top colleges. Most people write crap and get rejected. So the VAST majority of applicants would benefit from reading 20, 30, 50, 100, 200+ essays.
@drcharisma
I would just use the same essays. Like I took my Berkeley essays and tweeked them for Stanford. Then I took the Stanford essays and edited them down for Yale. Then I took the Yale modifications and put them back in the Stanford essays. So in that sense applying to Berkley and Yale actually helped my Stanford application. We’ll see if it worked in May.
@PurpleTitan don’t forget that the same is true for hooked (specifically URMs) applicants. It’s not any easier for them to get into elite institutions.
@ndemazita: Actually, it is. At least compared to non-hooked applicants. Just take a look at some results threads.
@ndemazita
@PurpleTitan
Ya UMR helps a ton. My 2 black and 1 hispanic friends all got full-ride scholarships into at least one of the universities they applied to.
IMO being UMR drops the bar by 1 notch. So it’s not a guaranteed acceptance but it helps a lot.
e.g. Look at that all-Ivy person from last year. Typically an applicant of his caliber would get accepted to a few Ivies and rejected from a few other. Being black got him into all of them.
@bomerr @PurpleTitan Well, true, but you still have to be qualified. The all-ivy kid was definitely qualified. If he had a 3.5 gpa and got into all the ivies, now that would be crazy. I imagine many of his classmates felt a bit bitter considering the fact that he was only 11th in his class, yet got into all ivy leagues.
@ndemazita: “Qualified” is such a squishy meaningless term.
If you looked above in this thread, the elite colleges believe that roughly 80% of the applicants to their school are qualified to do the work at their college.
But if you are not URM and don’t have any other hook, it’s much tougher to get in to most of the elite privates (Caltech is race-blind; and doesn’t favor legacies or athletes either).
The bar is significantly lower for URM and other hooked applicants to most of those elite privates (though at HYPS, the bar would still be pretty darn high; but at those schools, like I said, a non-hooked applicant almost has to have some major achievement/talent to get in).
And sure, I can understand why some of his classmates would feel bitter. You don’t expect them to be human?
@PurpleTitan - I think what they are saying is that there are people with all sorts of qualities that get admitted, and that even if you get a perfect SAT score you aren’t guaranteed to get in. I don’t think they are trying to say that having a higher standardized test score wouldn’t help, but that as long as someone is “good enough” they have a shot at getting in.
The counterpoint to this is that they don’t want to discourage weaker applicants from applying who realistically have no shot. Weak extracurricular activities and mediocre (relatively speaking) standardized test scores? Harvard is probably a guaranteed rejection, but that doesn’t mean someone with weaker standardized test scores like a 2100 on the SAT or 31-32 on the ACT couldn’t get accepted to an elite school if their ECs are excellent or if their essays are amazing or if they have some quality that a school really wants.
When it comes down to it, admissions is really just about finding qualities that the college wants. Is it fair if an expert computer programmer gets in to MIT over an amazing writer? It’s just about the qualities that a school is specifically looking for. I know people don’t like to consider race as one of these qualities, but it is. Not to get all philosophical, but it really just depends on what qualities you view as innate. Obviously race is innate, but what about our abilities and talents? Someone born to a lower-middle class farming family in the middle of Nebraska might have had the genetics to be an excellent rower, but with no resources to be able to afford the sport and being completely landlocked, there’s no way that kid would ever have the chance to row.
This system is terrible for the kids who are rejected and feel hurt, useless, and unwanted, but unless you want to admit solely off of merit/ability (which doesn’t do anything for the colleges – every graduating class needs people to study the less popular majors) you will always leave people disappointed. And for the record, merit and ability isn’t a fair measure of performance either. There are circumstances that go beyond ability – a death in the family, poverty, illness, whatever it may be – that prevent people from realizing their true potential. We could also explore what issues allowing a test to determine where one goes to college could create, but I think it is enough to say that it doesn’t do a candidate justice to only view their scores and grades.
Just my two cents though, as a current high school senior.
@outlander545:
Great post. Well written, and great advice for those going through the process.
@micmatt513
I second what @PurpleTitan said. What he means is that everyone who gets in is “well-qualified.” But “well-qualified” for a white person in a top 20 wealthy zip code in america would include a 2300 SAT score + helping children at the local orphanage versus “well-qualified” for a UMR would be a 1900 SAT score + a few well-rounded ECs. In other words, a white person who has the exact same application (grades, essay, ec, etc or possibly slightly better) would be rejected. Does that sound like justice to you?
@bomerr – First of all, I don’t really believe that’s true. If you can show me many examples of this happening (note: the plural of anecdote is not data :P) then I will eventually be convinced. A lot of people brought up the kid from Long Island last year who got into every single Ivy. Is it impressive? Hell yes. But people bring up his scores as if he wasn’t qualified. A 2220 is not the most amazing score in the world, but it is certainly qualified to get into any school in the country, barring possibly Caltech. And while he may not have been an IMO finalist or won the Siemens competition, as I wrote before, colleges are looking to build a diverse class based on more than just medals and scores. He was a pretty talented musician if I remember correctly and had interesting experiences because of his parents being born in a different country and not speaking English as their native language.
I’m not religious, but in the Bible there’s a reference to something to the effect of “To whom much is given much is expected” or something like that. Malcom Gladwell calls it the Matthew Effect. I’m not trying to disparage the accomplishments of an affluent white person, but to say that it’s impressive for someone who has two professional parents making 5x the amount (or more) of the average American to be more involved in extracurricular activities or to have the opportunity to pursue other interests than someone who is impoverished is not taking into account the factors that affected their lives.
I know URMs who have gotten into top schools. One at my school this year just received a full-ride to Johns Hopkins and one a couple of years ago got into Stanford. Am I happy that they get a boost in their admissions based on their race? Not particularly, but considering that their scores were both quite respectable (2200+ on the SAT and 35 on the ACT respectively), there’s nothing I can really be bitter about. Consider recruited athletes compared to them. They get in with far lower scores than they did, and arguably detract from the school as a whole. Lacrosse players from my school have gotten into schools like Hopkins, Duke, Yale, Harvard, etc. with far worse scores than a regular applicant would have. Rowers have gotten recruited to schools like MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc. with below average scores. Is that any more or less fair than choosing someone based on their race? As I said, a lot of things determine someone’s realized potential. The holistic process is the only way to account for all of these standings.
If you want to talk about something that’s truly unfair, how about giving priority to full-pay students. College is astronomically expensive, so expensive that it’s cost-prohibitive for most of America because it costs more per year than the average person makes. The person being born to wealthy parents did nothing to deserve this wealth, so why are they being rewarded for it? I don’t like to play the game of “Who has it better than everyone else?” because it just eventually devolves into a whining match. The grass is always greener on the other side, and I think that people should just focus on themselves, not everyone else.
@outlander545…Great post. However 1 question. In #3 you say "Think about why you are applying to a college.
If you apply to all the Ivy league schools and think you will be equally happy at any Ivy you are doing something wrong. The name/brand is not everything. Ask yourself “Will I be happy in that college’s community for 4 year?”. Be honest. Do some serious research (and visit!!!) and think carefully over which colleges you will apply to. Do some serious reflection and ask WHY you are applying. Is it mainly because you want to be the kid who got into MIT?
You emphasize that the name brand is not everything. Later you posted in #8 " I visited UPenn, Yale, Brown, Harvard, MIT and Princeton this summer…and you ended up at MIT. Seems contrary to the point you were trying to make?
I like the post. I feel that many often get their college search switched around. They try and make themselves fit what they think a particular institution wants rather than finding the institution that fits what they want. Rather than “what can I do to make “x college” like me” it should be “I enjoy this and wish to study this” which colleges best fit what I want? I think one would be able to write a much more persuasive essay if they really mean it and aren’t trying write what they think an admissions officer wants to hear.
@micmatt513
A white person with his exact same profile would have gotten into one or two ivies, like the quote above says. Being a URM got him into all 8. Also the definition of “holistic review.” is instead of judging an applicant based on their raw qualities, they scale them based on their supposed environment, socioeconomic status and race. Admission is a zero-sum game; if one person gets a 'boost" then another person gets setback.
Btw I’m applying to Stanford and Yale this year. I qualify for the Pell Grant, Cal Grant and maybe some other aid. However, I’m not sending my FAFSA to those schools or marking “financial-aid” on the Common Application.
@bomerr – As I just said, the bar is not lower. It is just a more desirable quality, similar to being a recruited athlete or medal recipient at a prestigious competition. Many schools want people with certain traits, so they all compete for that person.
The bar is not “lower” because he got into all 8. The bar would be lower if he got into one or two with abysmal scores. We are talking about a highly qualified applicant who had desirable qualities. That doesn’t make the bar lower, it just improves his chances of getting in. That is a BIG distinction. Being an URM cannot turn an unqualified applicant into a qualified applicant, but it can turn a semi-desirable applicant into a more desirable one.
I think not applying for financial aid is stupid, personally. Even if you end up getting accepted, those schools will be far too expensive probably. I qualify for the Pell Grant (and will be receiving it from the school I’ll be attending), but it would be dumb just to try and improve my chances at a school because I think that they only want someone who can afford full-tuition. That’s a dumb way of trying to improve your chances and will probably leave you disappointed if you do end up getting in.
You stuck inside your head.
A semi-desirable applicant in elite admissions would be someone who is good but not superstar outstanding. To allow an good applicant into the same school as a superstar candidate means lowering the bar and not judging the good applicant so harsh.
In other words no one is getting in with abysmal scores and so that situation is make believe. Which means those two phrases mean the exact something IRL.
Someone else with the exact same application would have been rejected at 1 ivy or more because of a random factor. The fact that he got into all 8 proves the bar was lowered to avoid that issue. Hence his counselors shock that he got into all.
My EPC is 0 so if I ask for aid, Stanford would have to cover my gap which would be like 30k each year. I didn’t spend a year doing college research just to ruin my chance of admissions by asking for aid.
Can we not turn this into another URM thread, please??? There are threads specifically for that, this is not one of them. The OP made a nice, thoughtful post, don’t hijack her thread.
@bomerr – I don’t think we should continue to delay this thread any further, but I think you’re taking the college admissions process FAR too seriously. If you really want to go into that much debt just to slightly increase your chances at a school that you may or may not get into anyway, go ahead. I’d rather go to a school that wants me enough that they’d take me in even if I need more money in grants, even if it hurts my chances at admission. If a college will actually reject me because I’m too poor to pay for my education… that doesn’t reflect highly on the institution in my books and I’d rather not attend a university that cares more about what my parents do for a living than my qualities as a person.
Best of luck to you with Stanford and Yale, I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on these matters.
@moscott There were very specific reasons why I visited those schools. 1- The trip was for me and my brother who is a junior, so he got to pick some of the schools. 2- My logic for choosing colleges apply to was to graduate with as little debt as possible. And because my family isn’t exactly well off that meant either going to a state school with a full scholarship or applying to a need blind / need based school like the ones that I visited. In the end I only planned to apply to Upenn, MIT and a state school, but I never finished my Upenn application because of my MIT acceptance.
Also @bomerr I am slightly confused why you wouldn’t apply for aid. If the college is need blind there is no reason not to. In addition, Ivies expect more out of wealthier applicants because they don’t have to work and can focus on Ecs and have tutors for the SAT and stuff. Being poor, believe it or not, adds to the total diversity of the class- at every college I visited they made sure to mention the %age of people that went there for “free”.